Donald Trump's history with Adolf Hitler and his Nazi writings: ANALYSIS

Even after backlash, Trump again echoed his words at a campaign rally.

Republican 2024 presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in Waterloo, Iowa, Dec. 19, 2023.

At his campaign rally in Iowa this week, Donald Trump once again broke new ground, becoming the first leading presidential candidate to find it necessary to insist he had never read the most infamous book of the 20th century.

"I never read 'Mein Kampf,'" Trump said, referring to Adolf Hitler's manifesto ("My Struggle") that provided the philosophical basis for Nazi Germany and, ultimately, the murder of more than 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.

This was the first time Trump had invoked Hitler's name and the title of his memoir at a political rally, but there have been multiple reports over the years of Trump expressing a keen interest in, even admiration for, Hitler's rule over Nazi Germany.

In the past, he's actually acknowledged owning a copy of the book.

Trump's denial that he had read Hitler's memoir came after he has made a series of incendiary remarks in recent weeks referring to his political opponents as "vermin" and saying illegal immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country."

MORE: Trump, again, praises dictators and rails against immigrants -- again sparking backlash

There's no question that language echoes that Hitler used to describe his enemies, but there may have been some question about whether Trump knew he was using the same words Hitler used to justify his murderous and genocidal rule of Nazi Germany.

Now, after backlash that his words echoed Hitler's, however, there is no doubt.

"They said Hitler said that," Trump said Tuesday after he again told the crowd in Iowa that immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of America.

After insisting Hitler used the words "in a much different way," Trump went on to make the "blood" reference again. "It's true. They're destroying the blood of the country, they're destroying the fabric of our country, and we're going to have to get them out."

In other words, Trump's response when criticized for using Hitler's language was to acknowledge the criticism and then to use it again. Whether he is telling the truth about not ever reading "Mein Kampf," there have been multiple reports of Trump privately admiring Hitler.

As president, Trump reportedly complained that America's military leaders were not "totally loyal" to him, telling his chief of staff, retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, "Why can't you be like the German generals?"

As reported in "The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021" by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, Kelly responded by pointing out Nazi generals "tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off."

And as I reported in "Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party," Trump boasted to a Republican congressman that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had told him there was "only one" leader in history who had attracted crowds as large as Trump.

"She told me she was amazed at the size of the crowds that came to see me speak," Trump told the Republican congressman. "She said she could never get crowds like that. In fact, she told me that there was only one other political leader who ever got crowds as big as mine."